Page 2 of Blood Ties

I could hear Edith saying it. The memory almost made me smile. Then I pictured her forcing herself through a huge empty house while keeping the trip secret from me, and the humour disappeared.

Secret trips across Yorkshire didn’t fit the woman I’d seen during her final years.

“Did you believe her?” I asked.

Arthur took a second before answering. “I believed she understood the declaration and the consequences of signing it. I also knew that pressing her for details made her less likely to give them.”

That was a diplomatic way of saying Edith could out-stubborn a locked door.

I pointed to the metal box. “I assume that’s the condition.”

“It contains the keys and her instructions. You have to retrieve a case from under Harrowmere before you can sell the house or authorise anyone to clear it. If you refuse the property, the executors still have to find the case before it passes with the rest of the estate.”

I’d already reached the same conclusion. “She made going there the quickest option whether I accept the house or not.”

“Yes. I suspect she knew you’d notice that immediately.”

Edith had probably enjoyed arranging a problem nobody could avoid after she was gone. I wanted to complain to her about it.

I tapped the instruction. “Why make me retrieve it? You’re her executor. She could’ve told you where the case was and asked you to deliver it.”

Arthur leaned back. “I asked the same thing. She said the route would only open for you. I assumed she meant a biometric lock or private code, but she said Harrowmere had been waiting for you longer than either of us understood. She wasn’t joking.”

There was the sort of sentence solicitors avoided unless someone else had said it first. Arthur looked uncomfortable repeating it, which told me Edith had meant every word.

Arthur entered the combination and opened the box. Several modern security keys sat beside an alarm fob. A long key blackened with age lay on top of a cream envelope with my name written across the front.

He passed me a single typed page. “The estate office is near the back of the house. Your grandmother says the old key will open a route to the case, although she didn’t explain where that route begins. She also insisted that only you take possession of the key.”

I lifted it by the stem. The bow showed a raven with its wings spread around a narrow crown. The metal was colder than the room.

“Did Edith ever explain this symbol?”

“She wouldn’t discuss it. Nobody from the firm has been inside Harrowmere since her death, and the maintenance company only has keys for the front entrance and outbuildings.”

I set the old key beside the title plan. “Send me the maintenance reports and the names of everyone who knew she still owned the house. I want the alarm records as well.”

Arthur gave me a tired look. “You’re on bereavement leave, Bryony.”

I investigated compliance failures for a Leeds insurer, which meant I spent most days reading records and looking for the part someone hoped I would miss.

“Which means my employer has kindly provided more time for me to investigate the secret mansion my grandmother pretended she didn’t own.”

“I was going to suggest that you rest.”

“You’ve met me before, so that feels optimistic.”

A brief laugh escaped him before he became serious again. “I’ll send everything this afternoon. Please don’t enter the house alone until you know why Edith restricted access.”

The warning was sensible. It wasn’t enough to make me leave the questions alone.

I reached for the envelope. “Did she write this here?”

“She brought it already sealed. I haven’t read the personal letter, and she was very clear that nobody else should.”

Arthur offered to leave. I thanked him, and he shut the office door behind him.

Edith had squeezed my name across the envelope in letters that were too large for it. She always ran out of space near the edge. Seeing her handwriting hurt more than the funeral bill had.